The cutesy little exclamation point crowbarred into the title of "L!fe Happens" tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the new girls-night-out comedy. Namely, it screams that this is a film dying to be seen as fun.

After all, what says whimsy more than typographical irreverence? But when you get down to it, as much "fun" as mid-title punctuation apparently is to certain people, there's really not much of a point to it.

That sort of good-natured emptiness might be excusable in a movie title (might be), but when it comes to storytelling, amiability can do only so much to cover up aimlessness. And that's exactly what characterizes "L!fe Happens" for the bulk of its running time.

Striving to be a sort of "Bridesmaids" meets "Sex and the City" -- but never quite capturing the spark of either -- the reasonably well-polished and well-cast "L!fe Happens" spends most of its time following its main character as she mopes her way through the rigors of single motherhood.

She's played by the storky Krysten Ritter ("Confessions of a Shopaholic," "She's Out of My League"), who also co-wrote the screenplay in an apparent effort to prove she's ready to graduate from kooky best friend to kooky leading lady. She makes a reasonably strong run at it, too -- despite a physical presence that still says kooky best friend.

Her character is a doe-eyed twentysomething named Kim who, after a fling with a buff but brainless surfer dude, finds herself burdened with Son of Surfer Dude. Unfortunately, as she quickly learns, a Baby Bjorn and a breast pump have a way of crimping a woman's style.

Gone are the nights out with the girls, gone are the flings with the studs picked up at the bar du jour. In other words, gone is the social life that landed her in this predicament. Gone, too, are her career aspirations (questionable though they were).

Krysten Ritter, left, and Kate Bosworth play best pals whose friendship is tested by circumstances in the comedy 'Life Happens.'

Instead, Kim finds herself suffering from that all-too-common affliction of new mommies: She is in a rut.

Good thing she's still got her BFF and roommate Deanna (Kate Bosworth) to lean on through it all. Only thing is, Deanna's writing career is starting to take off -- which means she's really not quite the ready-made baby sitter Kim feels she needs.

And that's what's really at the crux of "L!fe Happens": At first glance, this is a story about a woman struggling with motherhood, but it's really two best friends growing apart as their lives take shape.

Unfortunately, director Kat Coiro's film doesn't get around to developing that story -- that real and potentially more rewarding story -- until the last 25 minutes or so, when the film is in the home stretch and audience members are restlessly wondering if they should bother waiting for the credits to roll before heading to the bathroom.

Until then, "L!fe Happens" sends Kim kicking around and doing nothing, and feeling sorry for herself while she's doing it. In fact, that first uninspired two-thirds of the movie feels like little more than an excuse to finally bring to the screen a notebook's worth of one-liners and quirky but half-developed characters that have been bouncing around in the heads of co-writers Ritter and Coiro.

What the movie really needed was a rewrite once Ritter and Coiro figured out where the real emotion of their story was. Because they might be right in so far as "l!fe" sometimes just happens -- but their film also proves that memorable mov!es don't.

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L!FE HAPPENS2 stars, out of 4

Snapshot: A comedy about two best friends and roommates whose lives are thrown for a loop when one of them gets pregnant.

What works: There's a sense of fun to it, and it's reasonably well-polished for a small indie comedy.

What doesn't: In their efforts to be quirky, the filmmakers neglect the emotional core of their movie.